The Pasadena Police Department policy on body worn cameras is being changed to meet some of the criticisms raised in a lawsuit by the local chapter of the NAACP and in City Council meetings by the ACLU, the Coalition for Increased Civilian Oversight of Pasadena Police, and other Pasadena police reform activists.
Civil rights attorneys Skip Hickambottom and Dale Gronemeier, who are prosecuting the NAACP lawsuit, announced today that two of the four major reforms that police reform activists have advocated will be addressed by changes to the PD policy released to them yesterday by City Manager Steve Mermell.
The PD policy 450.12 concerning public release of body worn camera video is reversing the prior policy’s tilt against release to a policy favoring public disclosure. The old policy stated that audio/video recording were “investigative materials” which, under the California Public Records Act, would have made them exempt from disclosure; the NAACP lawsuit sought to invalidate that provision as inconsistent with the 2016 City of Eureka v. Superior Court case.
The “investigative materials” language is deleted from the new policy and replaced with a policy favoring disclosure except for specified exemptions through the following language:
The Pasadena Police Department will endeavor to release BWC recordings to the greatest extent possible unless disclosure would:
- endanger the safety of a witness or another person involved in the investigation,
- jeopardize the successful completion of an investigation or
- violate local, state, and/or federal laws, including but not limited to, the right of privacy,
- or involves other mitigating circumstances such as potential civil litigation.
The second reform in the new policy is the addition of a section prohibiting use of body worn cameras for political surveillance.
The new section 460.6.1 entitled “First Amendment Activity” provides the following:
Members shall not use the BWC devices to record individuals who are engaged in peaceful protest or First Amendment protected speech or activities; unless the officer believes a violation of criminal law is occurring, may occur, of if the officer has direct interaction with the participant or third party to the event.
Hickambottom, who is also a member of the local NAACP Executive Committee, praised City Manager Steve Mermell and Mayor Terry Tornek “for listening to the voices of the citizenry and improving the body worn camera policy. The tilt towards greater video disclosure and prohibiting political surveillance are important changes that they have stepped forward to implement.
However, the exceptions to public disclosure of body worn camera video are still too broad; for example, practically every police killing involves a civil lawsuit for wrongful death, so the exception for potential civil litigation is untenable.
Experience shows that trying to suppress video recordings of shootings puts the police in a losing position because the public will not stand for it; suppression just gives the police a black eye. The Pasadena PD would be better served by eliminating that exception.”
The body worn camera policy’s announcement in November was met by harsh criticism that the Pasadena PD police administration had backtracked from an earlier version that was more progressive and caved-in to the wishes of the City’s police union; City Manager Mermell was criticized for rushing to promulgate the policy despite a request by Council Member John Kennedy, Chair of the Council’s Public Safety Committee, to hold public hearings before his Committee before promulgating the policy. The NAACP lawsuit alleges that the City’s police administration pulled a “bait-and-switch” by using the more progressive first version of the policy to get community support and to get funding from the U.S. Department of Justice but then changing to a more conservative policy in negotiations with the police union. Hickambottom said that he and Gronemeier would be meeting with the Executive Committee to decide how to proceed with the lawsuit in light of the changes to the policy.
